The British nation, which has produced the greatest men in every profession, before the appearance of Milton could not enter into any competition with antiquity, with regard to the sublime excellencies of poetry. Greece could boast an Euripides, Eschylus, Sophocles and Sappho; England was proud of her Shakespear, Spenser, Johnson and Fletcher; but then the ancients had still a poet in reserve superior to the rest, who stood unrivalled by all succeeding times, and in epic poetry, which is justly esteemed the highest effort of genius, Homer had no rival. When Milton appeared, the pride of Greece was humbled, the competition became more equal, and since Paradise Lost is ours; it would, perhaps, be an injury to our national fame to yield the palm to any state, whether ancient or modern. The author of this astonishing work had something very singular in his life, as if he had been marked out by Heaven to be the wonder of every age, in all points of view in which he can be considered. He lived in the times of general confusion; he was engaged in the factions of state, and the cause he thought proper to espouse, he maintained with unshaken firmness; he struggled to the last for what he was persuaded were the rights of humanity; he had a passion for civil liberty, and he embarked in the support of it, heedless of every consideration of danger; he exposed his fortune to the vicissitudes of party contention, and he exerted his genius in writing for the cause he favoured. There is no life, to which it is more difficult to do justice, and at the same time avoid giving offence, than Milton's, there are some who have considered him as a regicide, others have extolled him as a patriot, and a friend to mankind: Party-rage seldom knows any bounds, and differing factions have praised or blamed him, according to their principles of religion, and political opinions. In the course of this life, a dispassionate regard to truth, and an inviolable candour shall be observed. Milton was not without a share of those failings which are inseparable from human nature; those errors sometimes exposed him to censure, and they ought not to pass unnoticed; on the other hand, the apparent sincerity of his intentions, and the amazing force of his genius, naturally produce an extream tenderness for the faults with which his life is chequered: and as in any man's conduct fewer errors are seldom found, so no man's parts ever gave him a greater right to indulgence.